


OPULENCE

by TTMIYH



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Sburb Session, Alternate Universe - Vampire, BDSM, Blood Kink, Dom/sub, F/F, Femdom, Femsub, Sadomasochism, Sugar Mommying, Vampires
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2021-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:07:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 12,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23182207
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TTMIYH/pseuds/TTMIYH
Summary: Rose felt almost cripplingly inadequate compared to this Titaness, the Lady Maryam looming over her. She was atleasta foot taller than the 5'1" Rose, maybe a little more, and there was just something to her aura that Rose could only describe as "regal". Bewitching, even. Rose had felt nervousness before, in many contexts, including sexually, but somehow, this nervousness was a little bit different to all those other ones, and yet intimately familiar in a way she couldn't describe. It was the sort of nervousness before you were judged. The nervousness before receiving test results.The nervousness before your life was violently changed, and all you could do was wait and try to ride the tide.
Relationships: Rose Lalonde/Porrim Maryam
Comments: 11
Kudos: 56





	1. Chapter 1

Some might've thought the Lady Maryam's schedule to be odd. Perhaps it was, but Rose Lalonde was all-too-happy to be showing up this late. She had never been too much of a morning person, something that had become rapidly apparent during her stay at higher education, and the ability to travel and get things done in a more nocturnal fashion had become something close to a godsend. A meeting at 8 PM had given her time to perform her proper preparations. After all, the Lady Maryam was a _very_ important woman, and ensuring that she was dressed for success would give Rose each and every bit of an advantage that she could have.

Responding to the Lady Maryam's initial call for "assistants" had left Rose woefully underinformed as to the actual details of her job, but their short discussion over the phone had given her a little bit more useful information. Helping her with errands, getting food, entertaining guests, and the like. Something like a maid -- no, it wasn't particularly glamorous, but with the compensation offered, Rose found it more than adequate. After all, the unfortunate facts of living in a capitalist hellscape was that her authorial action did not provide her with nearly enough capital to live even a comfortable life. From a studio apartment to golden elevator doors, she watched idly, listened for the soft whine, the elevator doors clicking open.

The elevator itself was almost larger than her dinky studio apartment. Rose could see it in her mind's eye, her mattress pressed up against the spit-shined tile floor, her little work table crammed into the be-railing'd corner. A small kitchenette on the opposite wall, framed by mirrored walls giving her a peerless view into an infinity of herselves in every which way, a perfectly cut grid of pristine mirror sheen, rounded distortions magnifying to visibility only 50, 60, 70 Roses out. By the time she caught herself staring back at herself, the elevator chimed its notification sound, and the door hissed outwards.

Rose knew, partly from the "help wanted", partly from discussion, that this was an important place, and the Lady Maryam an important lady. Fancy. She dressed the best she could with the limited resources available, borrowing a dress and makeup from her sister (she of inimitable fashion sense), and applying it with all the grace and hand-eye coordination of a small penguin. That was fine. Smudged eyeliner was in vogue. Emo never died, anyway. Black lipstick was significantly easier to apply, and a sparkly new headband helped navigate Rose's hair from a jumble of disorganized, wiry strands into something a bit more coherent. And then she stole her mother's shoes from the family manor because she lacked tip-tappies of her own. Thus was life. Her only other adornments were a pair of white earrings and a clear coat of nail polish.

She felt severely out of place in this locale. Even her best and fanciest, dressed for success, seemed to pale in comparison to the aesthetic of the outrageous estate. The condominium complex was among the city's tallest buildings, and it glittered like G-d's fanciest sewing needle rammed right into the skin of the earth, sprouting like a precious metal bamboo shoot out into the sky. And her hopefully-soon-to-be-employer lived at the very tippy-top of this affront to good taste, at the largest penthouse, occupying the _entirety of the top floor_. Rose coughed twice into her elbow, staring out into a small hallway, somehow expecting to be taken aside by another maid, or assistant, or some other "help". When nothing came, she quickly slipped her way between the closing doors, afraid of getting herself crushed between two perfectly safe gigantic metal halves.

Rose ambled her way through the hallway, the marble tile floor gleaming white and polished to a point where Rose could swear she saw herself looking back at her when she got caught up in making sure she didn't fall. Grace wasn't exactly one of Rose's strong suits, and, while not heels, these shoes were uncomfortable enough that the very, very mild pain they caused in her toes was enough to keep her off her balance, both literally and metaphorically. At the end of the hallway, a closet, perhaps? The door was shut. Rose dared not venture.

Instead, she rounded the corner, T-junction as it were, to be blessed by a face-to-face meeting with Bohemian divinity. The closest descriptor of it would maybe be some kind of temple, something distinctly Greco-roman, with piles of marble and granite hewn to a perfect rounded edge. Modern, yet ancient. The background noise of gently trickling water pulled Rose's attention to several little fountains, those small little tinkertoys for one's attention where a flow of water kept a small mechanism winding. Several of them seemed to be built into the walls. The initial hallway's rounded corner ballooned into a large, open-concept, luridly lavish foyer. A kitchen itself _also_ larger than Rose's apartment caught her eye to her right, and a closed door behind a layer of curtains drew momentary attention from the left.

There were so many more knicknacks and little subsections, small pits seemingly carved into the floor to form conversational prisons fenced off with couches and cushions, a "small" study sectioned off with waist-high bookshelves spiraling outwards, a labyrinthine maze of opulence leading her along this self-guided tour. Not a single sign of the condominium's owner, and what seemed to be a disorganized jumble of "rooms" actually managed to somehow cohere into a logical order once Rose had spent another five minutes letting the sheer culture shock of the place wash over her. It wasn't really much of a foyer at all, just a strangely managed connection of rooms split by what would in any other situation be solid floor-to-ceiling walls, and in this case, were not. 

Somehow, this didn't bring her any comfort. Making her way to the back of the condo, where immense windows overlooked the city itself, although from this angle, all Rose could see was the steadily dimming horizon, tainted with light pollution from the city around them, and curtains framing the rest of the viewports like the walls of a spaceship. It took a second or two for her brain to catch up with the rest of what she was looking at, however, and the realization of balcony presence left her suddenly stiffening up at attention. She had spent what was almost 10 minutes just snooping around her maybe-employer's home, potentially in full view of them. With this kind of layout, it was almost impossible for Rose to hide herself in any significant way. Even lying on the floor, an option that seemed more appealing with each passing moment, held no actionable plan for escape. 

Rose's heart was thudding in her ears. She felt a rush of cool wind caress her face as the glass door to the balcony, almost indistinguishable from the window itself, slid open, and her ?????-?????? moved from beyond the semi-drawn curtains and into her own condominium.

The Lady Maryam took Rose's breath away. Rose was at a loss for words. Bare, slender feet gently padded along the smooth floor, almost completely silent, and the Lady Maryam's movements seemed so elegant and practiced that she simply glided across the ground. It was like watching a video game model walk, but they didn't quite sync up the rate of leg motion with the actual speed at which they were moving.

Her dress was at once much simpler and much more elegant than Rose's -- some sort of jade green negligee-like number, a plunging neckline and translucent material leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination. The Lady Maryam's chest was almost bared to the world at large, enough that Rose could even see the golden piercings adorning her, one in each nipple, another in her navel, and as her eyes bounced back upwards, a ring in her lower lip, a barbell in her eyebrow, what seemed like dozens of pieces in her ears (including one chain!). There was enough metal in her that Rose could absolutely not fathom her making her way through airport security unaccosted, and then mentally corrected herself. Surely someone of her stature would have a private jet?

Rose felt almost cripplingly inadequate compared to this Titaness, the Lady Maryam looming over her. She was at _least_ a foot taller than the 5'1" Rose, maybe a little more, and there was just something to her aura that Rose could only describe as "regal". Bewitching, even. Rose had felt nervousness before, in many contexts, including sexually, but somehow, this nervousness was a little bit different to all those other ones, and yet intimately familiar in a way she couldn't describe. It was the sort of nervousness before you were judged. The nervousness before receiving test results.

The nervousness before your life was violently changed, and all you could do was wait and try to ride the tide.

She bent down, smiling, offering a hand with perfectly manicured nails. Gold and black, of course. "You must be Rose Lalonde, correct?"

Rose gulped in assent, pressing both hands to the Lady Maryam's with a weak smile. She shook. "Right. Correct. That's me."

The Lady Maryam withheld a pleasant chuckle, returning Rose's handshake before letting go. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Lalonde. You can call me Porrim Maryam. Now, before we begin our negotiations, would you be a dear and acquire some wine from my rack in the kitchen?"

Rose, ever the wise-ass, just had to let the comment go with a poke, trying to wring the sweat off of her palms against the back of her dress. "Some kind of secret employer test of character?" She cracked, earning a solitary chuckle or two from Porrim.

"No, I just think I could stand to be a little less sober."


	2. Chapter 2

Rose's motion through the condo was robotic and stiff, now all-too-aware of the presence of a watching force imprinting her judgmental gaze on Rose's back. It was taking every last reserve of personal strength she had built up over her 26 years of age to not continually flick her head backward in Orphean fashion just to see if she was being looked at or not. This was just a little maid stuff, some casual butlering -- why was Rose so tense? Relax your shoulders, Lalonde. There you go. This is probably what your job is going to be like so get used to it fast. She couldn't help but feel a little ridiculous.

The kitchen was neat, well organized, shiny. Nearly every surface outside of the granite countertop of the central island was covered in metal, giving Rose an immediate impression of a morgue. She could see herself in every single surface, stretched and sliced by slender slivers of sterile stainless steel. For a moment, Rose had the eeriest recollection of _American Psycho_. The film, not the novel, lord, no, not the novel. The wine rack was crammed into a comfortable little closet over around the edges of the cooking-related countertops. Rose was never much of a connoisseur of the craft, but even a cursory label glancing through the glass-laden door showed some ages she was severely uncomfortable with.

She spent five minutes carefully weighing bottles, looking for one that looked already opened. She had no desire to go and grab the most expensive vintage in here, in case this was some kind of secret test of character. After having selected the wine in question, something half-full from the 1960s or so, Rose began backing out from the little cellar clo"Grab the Coravin, please, Mrs Lalonde." The Lady Maryam interrupted, Rose nearly dropping the bottle out of her hand entirely. Rose was immediately thankful that the fumble did not end with glass on the floor and wine everywhere, as she gracelessly re-caught the bottle in her hands.

"Ah. Sorry." Rose mumbled, wondering what a Coravin was. She looked around uselessly, shrinking a little bit back into the Lady Maryam. She just reached over Rose and grabbed a strange-looking doohickey from the inside wall, putting it down into Rose's hands.

"I'll get glasses. Meet me on the balcony." The Lady Maryam said, smiling down at Rose in a way that she couldn't quite place as condescension, although it sure felt like it. Maybe it was pity? If there was anything particularly off-putting about the Lady Maryam, it was how Rose could absolutely not get any sort of bead on her. She was a wall of steel, just like her kitchen, only reflecting anything Rose tried to put onto her back out into the world.

And then she was gone. Not literally, of course, she turned around and walked away quietly, but Rose could've sworn she just blacked out a little bit, or maybe skipped every other frame of the Lady Maryam's walking animation, or maybe had a very small dissociative episode. Looking down at the inscrutable label, drawn in cursive she hasn't read since elementary school, Rose carried the bottle out with her. Gentle, like a cradled child. Can't afford to drop 60-some-year-old wine, after all.

The balcony was just as resplendent as the rest of the condominium, looking disproportionately heavy compared to the wall it hung off of, like a small slice of Greek Parthenon restored to working order and just hung off this skyscraper in the way one would stick a suction cup to a window. Two comfortable, posh-looking chairs provided ample sitting space, space which Rose was glad to take when she was ordered to by the Lady Maryam's gesturing finger.

There was just enough room between them that Rose would have to stretch a little bit out to touch her. But the Lady Maryam, with her superior wingspan, could easily just reach over and grab Rose. Instead, she set the two glasses down on a glass table, rimmed with gold, and gestured outward with pointed, claw-like nails, each lacquered tightly with black polish, flecked with what could only be real gold, a constellation of stellar material on her fingertips. "Have you ever used one of these before, Mrs. Lalonde?"

"I can't say I have, Miss. I hope that won't be a strike against me?" Rose replied. In any other circumstance, it would've come out of Rose's throat as a torrent of snark, but her apprehension rode more genuine than the sarcasm, overtaking it on horseback and striking it down with her spear.

"Of course not. I expect you to learn the bulk of your duties on the job. First, you clamp this part--" The Lady Maryam began, already bidding Rose out of her seat, urged her closer, a command which Rose had no issue with obeying. The Lady Maryam's hands gently guided Rose through the process of clamping the "Coravin" onto the bottle, of pushing the mosquito proboscis tip through the cork, and then pouring two perfect little glasses of dark, brick-fuchsia wine. Then, the mystic device removed, and a final pull of the nozzle to get rid of any wine left in it. "Voila. You have now poured a 64-year-old vintage without setting it to oxidize. Well done, Mrs. Lalonde. I'm afraid I'll have to request you to refrain from drinking for the time being, so that any contractual work can be done with a clear head."

And with that, the Lady Maryam took one single, solitary sip of wine. She pursed her lips together and set the glass down. "That'll settle me for now. Why don't you tell me a little about yourself, Mrs. Lalonde?"

Rose bowed her head politely and sat back down in the other chair, turning it slightly so that she could better face the Lady Maryam. "I'm twenty-six years old. I graduated cum laude from Ithaca College, back in New York, with an English major and a minor in Psychology." Rose decanted her life story to this charming woman as easily as bubbles rose through champagne, popping from her mouth in a buzzing heat. "I've been performing freelance journalism and authorial entrepreneurship. You might've read me in _Shimmer_ , or _The Dark Magazine_."

"So you're a fiction writer, then?" The Lady Maryam asked.

Rose nodded. "Someday, I'd love to get a novel published, but I do have to make ends meet beforehand."

"What do you like to write about?" She hummed in response.

Rose rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "Horror, mainly. Psychological melodrama. Plumbing the depths of human subconscious, and the things mankind wasn't meant to know. Secrets in the dark."

"Flowery." The Lady Maryam chuckled.

Rose shrinks back, wilting, and the Lady Maryam chuckled a little louder. "Would you be surprised to hear that you aren't the first to tell me that?"

"No."

Rose weakly laughed in reply. "So, hopefully, this job will help me get enough to live off of while also giving me enough free time to really put my proverbial nose to the further-proverbial grindstone. Will I be reimbursed for travel expenses, or can I write those off entirely on my W-2?"

The Lady Maryam chuckled yet again once more, except this time, Rose wasn't sure what's funny. She smiled, in a way that seems almost perfectly crooked. "What transportation expenses?"

"Oh, I mean, is there some form of transportation here and there? Do you have a limousine pick me up from my apartment to bring me here each morning?"

The Lady Maryam found this similarly amusing. She muffled her giggles behind an elegant hand in a way that smacks Rose in the most uncomfortably familiar way, triggering some kind of muscle memory of Strider-induced anime-viewings. "I'm afraid whoever I delegated to send out for the position may have misinformed you. There will be no transportation costs to reimburse because this position is live-in. You will be staying at my condominium. You will cook, clean, tend to guests, and, if necessary, keep me entertained. In return, I will ensure you are thoroughly safe, I will ensure your financial security, I will ensure the monetary well-being of your friends and family, and I will allow you access to whatever resources are at my disposal."

It took Rose a couple of seconds for her head to catch up with what was going on.

"Live-in?" She mirrored, like a parrot, unable to do much more than squawk exposition backward at her potential employer.

"We'll begin with two hundred thousand dollars a month. Gross, not net. I'll also go ahead and immediately max out your 401k -- you do have one of those, right?" The Lady Maryam asked, in a way that straddled the line between pity and concern. Rose shook her head no. "We'll have my people set that up for you, then. 90% of your payment will be reserved in a trust fund, to be paid out at the end of your service, as to be determined by when you feel finished. The remainder will be your pocket money. Use it for whatever you'd like. We will take care of all living expenses, legal fees, accountant visits, and the like. Good behavior--" Rose immediately swallowed hard, internally considering the difference between _behavior_ and _performance_ , "will be rewarded with wage increases as appropriate. Do those sound like acceptable terms to you?"

"Je-Holy shit." Rose stammered, like letting go of a long-held breath. "That's a lot of money, Lady Maryam. What's the catch? I've read more than my fair share of Faustian tales, and there's no way an innocent Millenial girl like me could get involved in a deal like this without my soul being on the table."

The Lady Maryam smiled silently, and Rose's heart immediately bottomed out in her ass. "There's no catch. This is difficult work. You are to aid me in every part of life's endeavors, and in return, you will be rewarded with a small sum of useless cash."

"A _small sum_?"

The Lady Maryam, for once, looked a bit confused. Maybe even bemused, a touch bewildered at Rose's opposition to the concept. "Yes. Two million dollars a year is nothing to me. The green bills are meaningless. I could go my whole life without seeing another one. However, some people find a great deal of comfort in possessing large quantities, and I, having far too much of the stuff, am all too eager to give it away if it means that I can get rid of life's most pointless pains and annoyances."

Rose stared at her lap, gripping the sides of her dress. It took her a minute to muster up the next part of her train of thought. "Can I... think about it? Is this legally binding? Do I need to sign in my own blood and get it notarized by the closest associate of Satan I can find to ensure it passes legal muster? Shall I-"

"Yes, you can think about it, yes, it is legally binding, and yes, there is a contract. The terms are that, so long as you give me two weeks notice, you are free to leave whenever you have decided you no longer need any financial assistance. If you'd like to spend only two months to build a nice cushion, that is absolutely acceptable. Do you have a lawyer I should send it to?" The Lady Maryam interrupted, cutting right through Rose's prose with all the precision of a butcher separating silverskin from sinew.

"I... do not have a lawyer."

"Would you like me to hire one for you? Or provide you with funds to find your own?"

"I'd prefer to see the contract for myself, and we'll see where to go from there."

It took two minutes and sixteen agonizing seconds, of which Rose individually counted each one, for the Lady Maryam to disappear somewhere in her condominium. Rose could've watched, could've tracked her with her eyes, but she had the most sinking of feelings that the Lady Maryam somehow had eyes on every joint and pore of her body. Instead, she stared bullet holes in the wine glass, the liquid likely now attenuated to the cool air outside. It whistled past Rose's face, and she lost herself in the sensation for a moment, enough to be very slightly spooked at the return of the Lady Maryam.

She expected parchment, but no, the contract was laid out on several pages of printer paper. Rose had absorbed enough legal-ese that the next 10 minutes of reading proceeded smoothly enough. No fine print. No tricksy wording. The Lady Maryam was open to questions. Fulfill her gustatory, hygenic, entertainment needs, won't sue if injured on the job, yadda yadda. That last part almost made Rose laugh. What sort of workplace injuries would being a live-in maid entail?

"Okay. It... Looks good. Can I spend a day at my place packing up and come back here tomorrow evening with all my luggage?" Rose asks, her voice creaking at a rather sudden onset of throat dryness.

The tide was coming in. The tide that was going to change everything. The tide of opportunity.

The full moon hung heavy and pendulous in the air, like a second darklit planet, a new sun for the nightlife. Pure, blinding, silver opulence, marble white on the Lady Maryam's tattooed skin.

She handed Rose a jade green pen.

Perhaps some part of her thought that this must've been too good to be true. But the scent of the wine had the odor of richness and alcohol, the condominium was polished to a mirror sheen. There was no grift here. Some fatalistic, impulsive, risk-taking part of Rose thought, _perhaps if this is a lure for some nefarious plot, at least I will have died an interesting life_. Why was she rushing into this?

"That is perfectly acceptable."

Rose signed the dotted lines.

"Drinks?"


	3. Chapter 3

"I can _assure_ you, I'm not drunk. I may be the tiniest bit sloshed, but I've been past college and dealt with sororities, I can _handle_ my liquor, Miss Maryam." Rose replied, gently swishing back and forth on the chair in the balcony, feeling quite a bit like she was three steps from collapsing her way down a thousand stories and splattering onto the ground despite the firm glass barrier standing between her and oblivion. Still, it called to her, the intoxicating height, the inky blackness of the sky above. The moon shone straight through the starless abyss, sending its radiant halo across clouds. Truly, an artifact of divinity. Rose imprecisely swirled wine around inside its little glass, and then took another sip.

"It's not like I'm particularly plussed as to if you are drunk or not. You're a mostly free woman. Do as thou wilt." The Lady Maryam replied, taking an indulgent, larger sip from her own glass. The conversation had edged past half an hour of riveting nervousness, during which Rose mostly fiddled with her hands, taking her sweet time becoming increasingly emboldened by the subtle flavor of the wine gracing her tongue. Much pussyfooting ensued - I won't regale you with all of their myriad topics, but I can ensure you, they were not particularly supernal until Rose saw herself suitably sluiced with the sauce.

"Isn't that -hic- a Satanist, Satanist saying? Are you a Satanist, Miss Maryam? Is that where your immense riches spring forth from?" Rose jokes(?), continuing to dabble her tongue with all sorts of bitter, sour tastes. "Have you sold your immortal soul to the Prince of Darkness?"

"Well." The Lady Maryam choked out, unable to contain her laughter. She tossed her head back, rich chortles ringing through Rose's body in a way that made her feel distinctly like she was being mocked. Her mouth hung open, picture perfect white teeth glinting in the lamplight of the porch. Rose couldn't help but admire them in a way, even as the Lady Maryam returned to a neutral position. "You're confusing Thelema for Satanism. Three principles. '"Do as thou wilt" shall be the whole of the law. Love is the law, love under will. Every man and woman is a star'" She recited, apparently from memory. Rose was almost impressed.

"And are you a practitioner?" Rose replied clumsily.

"Of course not. I am an atheist. I no longer believe in systems that encourage such reckless individualism, nor do I believe in magick or spirits." The Lady Maryam shot back, before finishing off her glass and setting it on a nearby table. No more wine for her, apparently.

"So that's a "no" to the selling your soul bit?" Rose asked again. The Lady Maryam laughed right back again, and Rose could feel the hairs on her body standing on end.

She stood up, reaching up into the sky (do not stare at her body, Rose, do not stare) and stretching, twisting left, twisting right, cracking her spine in the process. "If I said "yes", would you believe me?"

Rose considered the possibility for a moment. "No." She cheerfully responded. "No, I wouldn't. I would believe you are, of course, either very old or very new money, and that your pithy adages about distaste for individualism don't gel with your actual lifestyle. I do wonder, idly, how many people you must have trampled in capitalistic excess to achieve this level of absurd success. Just a thought."

Rose was far too drunk to keep a lid on her snark, but, surprisingly, she was not immediately throttled by her generous patron, nor was she fired on the spot. Instead, the Lady Maryam just smiled a strange, knowing sort of smile at Rose, going to stand by the balcony and give her the cold shoulder while Rose Lalonde finished her god damn drink. That was fine, she could handle being ignored. A little part of her even said that she earned it by being a snarky little shit, but she drowned that part in some more delicious, ballistic expensive wine. When she was done, she set her glass to the right of Lady Maryam's on the table (or to the left, depending on who you asked and from what angle you asked from). "Did that one hit too close to home?"

The Lady Maryam chuckled a bit. Some part of Rose interpreted it as desperation - there was nothing a drunk Rose liked more than to needle people needlessly, but really, if the saner parts of her were more awake, they would peg it as clear-as-day amusement. Like a mother laughing at their toddler attempting to do something of worth, sheer _amusement_ at failure. Nothing more, nothing less. The way you laughed at a dog trying to perform human tasks. It pissed Rose off _so_ much, and there was very little she could realistically do about it. "Well, Jeff Bezos?"

"Topical." The Lady Maryam responded, a pointed grin plastered all over her sufficiently-less-drunk face. "If you must know, my family's wealth comes from Napoleonic France. We made some wise investments, and they paid out over the centuries to come. There are, indeed, some people our family has trodden over in the past, and we have since compensated them generously. Now, I live purely off more modern investments. Nothing so grotesque as the abuse of workers."

"Then why not use your Fortune 500 wealth to fix the world instead of being an idle rich?" Rose challenged, getting a little bit closer to the Lady Maryam. She had to admit, in this moonlight, full of (what Rose perceived to be) fire, she was much more beautiful than the poised, untouchable figure she was an hour ago. Yes, Rose, annoy them into revealing their truer, passionate inner selves, strip free the sense of detachment with obnoxious drunk prodding. This is the true way to be. This is how you get on people's good sides.

"What makes you think I'm not trying?" The Lady Maryam answered, plainly, which shut Rose up for a good 10 minutes.

"So, what's the sleeping situation for tonight? Am I to lay upon your couch like a visiting grandfather, occupying the living area, attempting to make himself as small as possible to avoid the ire of the morning visitors arriving for their coffee?" Rose rambled out, words ceaselessly spilling from her drunken lips. She always had a tendency to ramble like this, in extended, distressed metaphors, not unlike a relative of hers, but it was mostly successfully suppressed over the years, only now to return when drunkenness filled her being.

"Of course not, that would be asinine. You will be sleeping in my bed." The Lady Maryam replied. Rose gulped.

"Will I be sleeping _with_ you?" Rose asked, deflated, all the bite taken out of her in a moment.

"No, but I will be nude. You are free to sleep _with_ me if you want to, but it won't matter much to me, nor will your continued employment be contingent upon it." The Lady Maryam explained in a way that made her both less and more nervous at once, the two emotions combining together into a decrepit miasma inside of Rose's lungs. Sleep? With the Lady Maryam? A tall, willowy, pierced, slightly gothic, rich lady? Obviously, Rose _wanted_ to say yes.

So, she said "I'll think about it. Are there any other duties you'd like me to fulfill before the night ends?" instead.

The Lady Maryam turned to Rose, and for a second, the new live-in maid swore she saw her eyes _glow_. Some kind of photographic filter falling away in waves and wobbles from the Lady Maryam. When she spoke, Rose noticed, for the first time, _fangs_ , elongated, sharpened canines, both top and bottom, extensively prominent. Rose's heart immediately shot into overdrive. She could feel blood pooling in her core from the imminent mortal danger she believed she was in. Her limbs got cold. Her brain swam. And she somehow knew that her patron _knew_. "There's no need to worry, Miss Lalonde." Porrim quietly hushed, reaching a hand out and hovering it over Rose's shoulder. "May I touch your arm?"

Rose gulped. If there was some sort of vile magick influencing her mind, it was subtle enough that she couldn't notice anything different from her normal thought processes. She nodded. Porrim put her hand down, gently grabbing Rose's shoulder, and the slightest of pulls caused Rose to nearly stumble into Porrim's chest. Her patron bent down, baring her fangs. "The blood of drunkards tastes _vile_. Tomorrow, I expect a meal in the morning to make up for this. And surely, horror novelist Rose Lalonde will know what I mean without further explanation. Are we clear?"

 _Oh no, she's hot_.

Rose nodded silently, squeezing her legs together.


	4. Chapter 4

The night rolled by, sweaty and uncomfortable, the way all acclimatizing nights went by when you were sleeping in a new place. Rose's blood had drained out of her (metaphorically), the alcohol amplifying her fear to, frankly, unacceptable levels. She knew she was better than this - a _female vampire_ _aristocrat_ , Rose, you should be bursting with questions. When faced with those predator eyes, those impressive fangs, though, all she could do is wither in the moonlight. The talk past that had been light, and Rose slept on the couch.

That being said, she also slept barely. Porrim was, of course, much more of a night person than a day person, so she stayed up, wandering through the apartment, doing small little errands for herself, occasionally checking in on Rose, while Rose shivered under a couple of couch blankets, for couches, the kind typically reserved for decoration. That being said, they were by far the best couch blankets she had ever slept under, in her long and storied history of staying overnight on the couches of beautiful women.

She slept, tossing and turning, only getting the barest modicum of sleep. It was anything but restful, and she left the waking world with the alcohol leaving her, evaporating through her breath, brain conquered by a heady mix of excitement and anxiety. Her dreams were filled with blood, dark green swirls conquering her mind, trapping her in bindings of cloth and metal.

She dreamt up sharp spikes caressing her skin, enclosing her in cages. Marionette strings digging into her fingers as they coiled around tightly, pulling her, signing her contract with the devil - a haughty, powerful devil with dazzling eyes and a deadly bite. She dreamed about prisons, walking through them, examining the inmates trapped in green velvet panopticon, each one rattling on her cage bars a slightly different way. At the center lay the watchtower, where the single unblinking eye sat upon its throne, cursing her with its sight.

Her sleep was frequently disturbed. She slumbered with cold sweat, her clothes fitting uncomfortably on her body, her shoes lying idle on the floor, untouched, her toes curling, gasping for breath apneatic, rolling, drooling on a throw pillow, flipping over. She slept on her belly, she slept on her back, on her side, curled up, straightened. The grasping claws of sunlight reached for her face and she let out a little noise and slept some more, stuffing her face into the back of the couch so she didn't have to face any illumination. She passed back out, drifting in and out of slumber party gracelessness and the dream world where she lay, thoroughly bound and tied within her own head.

When she woke back up, the curtains were shut. The clock on her phone read 9:02, a perfect 6 hours after she thought she fell asleep for the first time. She rolled over, wiping hair out of her face, adjusting her bangs, slipping her hairband back on, and then, into her shoes. She stood up, stretched, and yawned.

"Hello there, Rose." Porrim interrupted her reverie, causing her to jump and let out an _embarrassing_ yelp. Then, she turned around, and bowed politely.

"Good morning, Lady Maryam. Is there anything I can do for you?" Rose asked, trying to suck up as much as possible to make up for the disaster that was "her getting drunk the night before". Even the words that came out of her mouth felt dreamlike, not in a forced manner but in a "What is happening" sort of way. When you wake up to a new day in an unfamiliar place like a dorm room or a new house or a lover's bed and you know that your life has just completely shifted sideways and gravity is deciding to take you a new way, a way you haven't been before, launching your stomach up into your throat. Should she apologize? No, just don't bring it up.

Porrim reached down, gently pushing Rose's head back up by her chin with two fingers. "Save the deference. You haven't earned it yet." Porrim said, and Rose felt like she had been slapped. Her body visibly deflated, dejected, before she really analyzed the words - "Haven't earned deference" - what? "We have cereal. In the cabinet next to that you'll find medical supplies. The fridge has milk. Make yourself breakfast and then join me in my bedroom with the first aid kit. Clean your neck first, there's rubbing alcohol. Cotton balls or swabs, not paper towels." She instructed, not leaving a single instruction to chance.

"Yes, my Lady." Rose quietly mumbled, a little bit mortified, a little bit excited.

"Cut that out. No "My Lady" stuff yet. Just call me Porrim." Porrim said, tilting Rose's head back up when it naturally gravitated back down towards staring at her feet. Porrim's face was... smiling? Smiling, and it set Rose's heart at ease, tumbling back down her throat and into the cavernous abyss of her stomach, where it settled, a little bit shaken, but not too upset. She tried not to dwell on the "Yet".

"Yes, Porrim." Rose replied, twirling around gently, her sweat-stuck clothes fanning out just a bit. She bowed with exaggerated grace and big, powerful motions. Then,

"Oh, actually. Clothes off, once I'm back in my bedroom. I'll order you a fresh set." Porrim commanded. Rose's panache vanished, as immediately as it had returned, and, mid-bow, mid-twirl, she paused, thinking for a moment.

"Okay, I'll do that." She replied, making a strange expression while her face was down at the floor, presumably outside of Porrim's sight.

"Great." Porrim said, her sandals clacking on the floor as she stepped away, leaving the air empty and still, and Rose to un-bend her back from her awkward bowing position. The doors to her bedroom slid open, accepting her into their cavernous maw, and then slid shut behind her.

Well... You heard the woman! Rose immediately ditched her sweaty clothes with a slightly dangerous enthusiasm for nudity, peeling off everything she could until she was completely in the buff. She danced a little bit, the most earnestly she's ever danced while nude at 9 in the morning, bouncing her way over to the kitchen to the sound of the soft background _Muzak_ that finally tuned into her mental radio, going from background to foreground. Bowls, cereal, milk, utensils. It was all rather logically arranged.

Very intuitive.

There was a knock on the front door, and Rose immediately shot up mid-Frosted Flake to get it, before suddenly regaining hold of her senses and remembering that she was completely naked. There was a small chime, and some dumbwaiter-like compartment on the side of the front door slid open, revealing a box that gently deposited itself via similarly small ramp onto a table. Sort of like a library's book return chute. Rose couldn't fathom why someone would need a package return chute installed in their penthouse, but, then again, Porrim was a vampire (potentially as ancient as Napoleon-Era France, if her employer was to be believed), so anything went at this point.

Then another box, and another. Rose finished her food as quickly as possible and decided to get the clothes before the medical equipment, although not before stopping to wash and dry her bowl and spoon and put them in the washing machine. It was a little nippy in here, as evidenced by her nipples poking out into the chilly air, and also the fact that it was cold. She grabbed each package, stacking them on top of each other and carrying them to the kitchen table, before taking a knife, admiring its sharpness for a moment, and gently slicing the tape off of the boxes.

Clothes! Gorgeous, expensive ones too, with labels that she recognized but scarcely believed were in her hand. A black shirt, white polka dots, with rounded, puffy shoulders, white trim, two buttons on the front. Matching skirt that went down to just above her knees, and a strappy little belt that accompanied, tying the two together to look like one complete piece. Very lacy undergarments, also both black, that were most assuredly worth more than every paycheck Rose had made before in her life combined - she put those on immediately, not expecting anything that would be needed to go under those. White ankle socks with purple trim and black mary-janes with boxy heels - very chic. A new hairband (hey!) that she reluctantly pulled her old one out for, with material of noticeably higher quality, and absolutely studded with small, dark greenish gemstones. Finally, a small jade brooch pin that Rose rolled her eyes quietly at (what was with it with Porrim and this color?) but still pinned to her shirt nonetheless once it was on.

A little adjustment was necessary after the fact, of course, but this was remarkably well fitted for something that Porrim presumably ordered on a whim, without actually knowing Rose's measurements. Perhaps Porrim was paying as close of attention to Rose as Rose was to her? Either way, she enjoyed these fine little creature comforts and, exactly as told, grabbed some cotton balls and some rubbing alcohol out of the medicine cabinet, pulling out the first aid kit with it.

As she cleaned her neck, she couldn't help but feel like she was preparing dinner for someone.

Or maybe breakfast.


	5. Chapter 5

Porrim's bedroom was its own lavish estate within the lavish estate (within the larger, multitudes-containing lavish estate that was the entire building), a Russian nesting doll of exquisite design and decoration. Modern, shiny perpendicular angles arranged with delicate precision, either by some contractor or, somehow more likely, Porrim herself. All in perfect 45 and 90 degree angles, in whites and blacks and golds. More Ritz than the crackers. She idly entertained herself with a flatscreen television mounted on the wall above the double sliding doors leading into her bedroom, her bed easily the size of a particularly small studio apartment by its lonesome.

Rose bowed politely upon entering, and Porrim playfully rolled her eyes in response, already working together in some rapportful back-and-forth as Rose approached the bed and its ottoman afront it. "May I, Porrim?" Rose asked, and when Porrim gave her a silent nod, Rose immediately stepped onto the ottoman (shoes included) and then onto the bed (shoes included). Porrim let out a little distressed noise, while Rose padded towards her, dropping the first aid kit gently onto the blanket and then sitting down next to her, folding her body up and looking at her. "Is there an issue?"

"No, there isn't, because those shoes are brand new. If you track _actual_ mud and dirt on my bed, or really any of my furniture, you're going to find yourself in possession of a crowd of fun new problems." Porrim answered. Her voice remained completely flat and monotone outside of slight changes in inflection and much larger changes in volume, presumably to emphasize to Rose that she was Really Serious, For Real.

Already, Rose promised to herself that she'd have to come in some time and track mud all over the bed. But later - there were no conveniently available sources of mud or grime at the moment, and she at the bare minimum didn't want to do it while Porrim was here. Of course, that would require Porrim leaving the house without her in tow, which for some reason, Rose found to be a somewhat unlikely possibility. Consider it a hunch, or something of the sort, but Rose had the feeling she and Porrim would be mostly in each other's vicinity in the near future.

Yeah, maybe stepping on the bed deliberately was a bad idea. Let's shelf that one for another day.

She gently kicked her shoes, recently put on, back off, to reveal her pristine little socks. It was all so _pristine_ , everything so crystal clear and clean, with very little room for dirty ambiguities in this new world Rose had intruded upon. Porrim set several pillows backwards, and then gently, with a hand on Rose's forehead, leaned her back, helping her scoot until her back and shoulders were positively festooned in pillows. "Why don't you tell me a little bit more about what we'll be doing here, Porrim? Other side." She said, taking a moment to point Porrim out to the other half of her neck, the half she actually cleaned with the rubbing alcohol.

"As you likely could've surmised by now, I am a vampire. I am approximately 200 years old, I haven't really kept strict count, it doesn't matter to me." Porrim explained, waving her hands about as she did so, as if to dismiss the mystique of her own expository tale. "The sunlight, among other things, burns me. I do not appear to age. I would prefer not to visit a church, but it's certainly possible if I needed to, with the right protection. Running water and rice grains are not an issue. But, I think, more pertinently to _your_ interests, Miss Horror Writer, is that fresh blood sustains me." Porrim said, baring her fangs... and keeping her mouth open, for Rose to examine.

"How does _that_ work?" Rose asked, only to be met with an uncaring shrug. She looked around, tilting her head up and down to peer into the depths of Porrim's mouth, slowly growing accustomed to those oversized canines, perfect dentist white, looming, preparing to... To stab into her. Of course.

"I don't know. I think our fangs are porous, or something of the sort. I certainly do not care for the biological realities behind how it keeps me alive, and frankly I think, given the state of our world today, the chance of an unsavory actor getting that sort of information strikes me as a bad idea. I'd rather not perform the research, lest it fall into those hypothetical hands." Porrim elaborated, giving Rose an answer, but a deeply unsatisfying one. She shrugged her shoulders again, this time a little more disrespectfully. "I drink blood and it keeps me alive forever. I don't need to know the nitty gritty."

"So, slightly more relevant, what's going to happen to me?" Rose asks, showing a completely appropriate amount of concern towards the woman who was, self-admittedly, going to stab her twice on the neck and then suck her blood out through her weird fangs. You'd be a little paranoid too. She shifted slightly away from Porrim, although the motion was mostly meant in jest. "Am I going to become a vampire too? And then we'll have to engage in antagonistically-fueled, sexually charged battles to the-"

"No, no you aren't." Porrim interrupted. "It requires a certain kind of ritual to blood another person, with lots of preparation and exotic materials. Rather messy, even. I have no intentions on performing that ritual with you."

"So... "It's magic, I ain't gotta explain shit"? Literally?" Rose challenged.

"Exactly. It's magic. Don't worry about it too much." Porrim admitted, laughing, going from a gentle, happy chortle to something a little bit more closer to her somewhat aristocratic aesthetic. "I'm sure there's an actual explanation, of course. But a logical one seems a far way away from me. I don't care!" She joked between chuckles. Rose was a little flabbergasted - here she was, not only discovering that magic was, to an extent, real as shit, but so were vampires, and a hot rich vampire was about to drain her blood. An arm hooked around Rose. "May I, Miss Lalonde?"

Rose took a deep, long breath, and then gulped as audibly as her little throat could manage. "You may."

Porrim's fangs, long and needle-sharp, punctured into Rose with all the grace of a trained phlebotomist who was attempting to puncture a vein with the syringe held between their front teeth. Respectfully to Porrim, this was also an accurate description of what was happening, albeit a not particularly flattering or sexy one. If Rose was in a mood to dramatize the situation a bit, which she always was, she might pretend to-

Oh, wait, no, she actually fainted.

Huh.

Still, even while asleep, it wasn't as if Rose was inactive. Her body and brain both very clearly processed the sensations happening to her, white hot metal ripping through her throat, blooming in her arteries, clogging her veins with pain. And then, after the pain came a distinctly pleasant tingle that her brain interpreted as some sort of venom but was more likely some kind of latent masochistic tendency. The more her unconscious mind considered it, the more it accepted this conclusion over the venom one. Vampire venom from a bloodsucking vampire she had signed a life-stealing contract with? Absurd. Rose being a masochist? Now that was much more imaginable.

She saw nothing but black, her body twitching, rocking back and forth, completely on autopilot while Porrim held her close and continued to drink, sip by piquant sip. Eventually, Porrim reeled her mouth back, and the incredibly unpleasant sensation of having a very large needle removed from your vein, followed by another very large needle being removed from either a continuation of the first vein or a completely different, but very close vein and/or artery accompanied it. Have you ever had to slide a splinter out but it was, like the size of two teeth? That was probably an accurate depiction of the sensation that sent Rose hurtling upwards like a cat you just dumped ice water on.

She even let out a little yowl! How cute. Porrim took a napkin and gently dabbed at her painted lips before popping open the first aid kit with a bare foot and immediately getting to work. While she cleaned, disinfected, and applied bandaids, Rose piped up.

"Will it always be that unpleasant? I can't say I'm a fan of the feeling of a doctor intentionally missing my arm with a needle twice in quick succession." Rose replied, dizzily, her brain trying to pull her back into that simmering miasma called sleep while she strained so hard to stay awake, every motion made as though through increasingly-thickening molasses.

"No, not when the venom starts kicking in. Good night, Rose." Porrim replied, cracking a distressingly wide grin as she pulled the middle blanket over the two of them. Rose was by far too out of it to make an accurate attempt at snark, but still she resisted.

"Not asleep yet!" Rose yelled back, right before she passed out again.


	6. Chapter 6

"How are you feeling?" Porrim asked, while Rose was still trying to figure out the rest of the world existed. Here she was, dressed to the nines in expensive, fancy new styles, a stomach full of cereal and milk for rich people, and also with two new puncture wounds on her neck that were certainly not there a ??? ago. "Not dead yet, are you? That would be sad."

"Yet?" Rose whine-asked. She didn't feel great, no -- it wasn't quite unlike getting smacked by a truck at high speeds but painlessly, and attempting to move your battered, bruised body off the side of the road similarly painlessly. The injury was there, but without any of the sensation. Her limbs were stiff and nearly nonresponsive, almost like the few episodes of sleep paralysis she received, taking an immense amount of effort just to wiggle her fingers. She could barely even turn her neck to face Porrim, not that she wanted to. _That_ produced a flare of pain, with her loud yelp quietly shushed by Porrim. "Are you going to kill me? Did I sign away my life into being a vampire's lunch? Or breakfast, I suppose. Oh, what a way to go." She slurred through lips that didn't quite want to open up to reveal her words.

"No, this isn't some sort of absurd jest, although if you'd like to write a screenplay based on that concept, you have my blessing. Vampires are venomous. It's an anesthetic and anticoagulant that promotes blood flow. Very useful if you're trying to drain someone completely dry, a bit of a hassle for someone like me. I went ahead and disinfected and bandaged your neck for you." Porrim explained, gently moving Rose's hands so that they were sat down on her lap, one on top of the other. "It is possible to overdose, hence the "yet". Thankfully, you do not appear to have done so, judging by the fact that you are still breathing and your skin has not turned blue."

"That's very generous of you." Rose mumbled. She tried to reach up and feel the bandage on her neck in more detail besides a gentle, blooming pain localized in that area, but her arms continued to disobey her, only slightly more helpful than the minute before.

"Save your energy. You'll be mobile in about 15 minutes and it'll be completely gone in an hour." Porrim instructed, and, well, when you put it that forcefully, how was someone like Rose meant to resist? Fairly certain there were no magic powers at play here, Rose just, apparently, liked being told what to do by powerful women. And also, getting bitten, but like, really hard? Judging by the warmth between her thighs, at least, that was a new development. Kind of. Her previous taste in written smut notwithstanding.

"Do people try to get high on vampire venom? And how long was I'm out? Er, was I out?" Rose asked, half in jest, half genuinely, if morbidly, curious. "This is definitely kind of a trip. I can't say I've experienced anything quite like this before."

Porrim laughed, staying a respectful distance away from Rose but still close enough that she could feel Porrim's body heat, coming off of her in waves. Once she saw those fangs, she completely expected Porrim to feel like a corpse, but in reality she was slightly _warmer_ than anyone else, which was also something she wanted to ask about. She had just _so_ many questions she could ask and then use the answer to in order to write her own compelling "woman becomes a live-in blood maiden for a rich, powerful vampire" erotica novel as true-to-life as possible. Hmm.

"No, not as far as I'm aware. It wouldn't be particularly useful, you were only asleep for about five minutes. Not enough time to be useful for some kind of knock-out operation. And definitely not a fun high." Porrim answered, and then rubbed her chin. "Actually, I suppose if you had some method of restraint it would give you enough time, but then you have to factor in the risk of actually acquiring it in the first place."

She flashed a razor-sharp grin, and Rose felt her body suppress a shudder, unable to express her delight with the proper bodily motions in her torso. Instead, she just sucked in air through her teeth. "Right. I imagine vampires aren't usually quite willing to part with such a useful gift."

Porrim chuckled. "Not usually, no. I suppose it's not out of the question, but then you'd either need to accept decapitation or get... milked." She made a hacking, gagging sound, sticking her tongue out in disgust. "No thank you. Unlike _some_ , I value my dignity."

At this point, most of Rose's joints had begun to loosen up enough that she could begin to move in earnest. Her limbs still felt too heavy to deal with, but she could at least turn her head towards Porrim and get a good look at her. Still just as beautiful as when they first met and every moment in between there and now, but instead of the apparel from last night, she was wearing essentially the same thing but as a translucent nightie that traveled down to her mid-thigh instead of a plunging-neckline evening gown. "Can you actually be decapitated? Aren't you immortal?"

"Only ageless, not invulnerable. I heal like the rest of you, but if it's not lethal, I'll grow back completely." Porrim responded, matter-of-factly, as if this was just a completely normal thing to discuss. "If you cut off my arm it'll grow back over a couple of decades so long as I don't bleed out. If you cut off my head I will probably die."

"Probably?" Rose asked, incredulously, beginning to slowly roll her body over to the side.

"I don't know, medical technology in this age is pretty amazing." Porrim responded, chortling. She noticed Rose trying to roll over and reached out to grab her shoulder gently, helping Rose move onto her side, arms folded out in front of her, presumably so she wouldn't lay on them and cut off blood flow or something. That sounds like it might be a problem with a bunch of anticoagulant in your veins. Maybe? Rose didn't know a lot about her circulatory system, although she was somewhat sure she was soon to find out a great deal. "Most vampiric weaknesses you've heard about are bunk. Pure or near-pure silver will burn my skin. Garlic doesn't taste very good. Too much direct sunlight will kill me fairly quickly, but getting some shade stops the worst of it."

Rose gulped, imagining having to hold a parasol out for someone who would die if she moved it out of the way. "How the hell have you guys not taken over the world yet?"

"We're no stronger or smarter than the average person, regardless of what some vampires may try to tell you-" Rose shivered quietly at the thought of meeting even more vampires, presumably, some of whom were powerful women. Nowhere in her contract was faithfulness necessary. They weren't dating. She was just her maid. "-and guns are a great equalizer. The ritual required to blood a new vampire also requires several rare ingredients, along with two vampires to get along, which, as you can imagine, is particularly difficult, so, no vampire armies yet."

Rose raised an eyebrow, a favorite expression of hers. "No I can't imagine. Why would that be difficult?"

Porrim chuckled. "Most of us do not get along very well. For one reason or another."

Rose tried to shrug, but it didn't really work. "I suppose that's as good a reason as any."

They sat there in relative silence for a couple of minutes, until Rose's limbs felt capable of moving, although it was definitely as if they were through molasses. "I suppose eventually I'll develop a resistance to your venom, and with that, you drawing blood will become harder and harder until it's no longer worth the pain, and I'll likely move on? If I had to guess, that sounds like the natural end result of things, and probably why you'd ever need a new maid at all, ever, given your, uh, generous resources."

Porrim nodded, scooting back a bit as Rose shifted forward. "That's how it usually ends, yes. Most people can't tolerate the actual pain when it's extended over a minute or two, and when your blood does not loosen up, it becomes much harder to drink."

"I see. Do I still have time to go home and get my stuff?" Rose asked, remembering that that was something she needed to actually do before she committed to being a live-in full time blood maiden for a hot, rich vampire. She just had to roll the phrase around in her brain a little bit, because she was still having an immense amount of trouble believing that it was actually a thing that was happening. She reached up and touched the bandage on her neck and her heart fluttered a little bit - it was absolutely real. It was realer than Kraft Mayo.

Porrim smiled. "Ah, yes, I was wondering a bit when you were going to ask about it. When you mentioned "The sleeping situation for tonight"-" "How did you imitate me so well? That's kind of scary, I'll be perfectly honest." "Thank you. When you mentioned "The sleeping situation for tonight" last night, you seemed drunk enough that I didn't feel it would be worth my while to push on the matter. There are plenty of malcontents out there who would be... interested in taking advantage of a drunk girl like you, as I'm sure you're aware."

Rose laughed, waving her hand in front of her face slowly. "You don't need to make excuses, Porrim. You're probably right. This was safer than going home in a car with a stranger from Uber or walking or driving. And I got to wake up in the most lovely of ways, so I'm not particularly plussed... but I still need my stuff." She replied, leaning forward slightly and flopping onto the pillows before pulling herself back up.

"Right, we can handle that. Don't want you to think that you can't. I'll call my driver and escort you downstairs so you can handle that. Take as long as you need, so long as you're back before the sun goes down." Porrim answers, turning around and scooting herself gently off the bed. Immediately, she peeled her nightgown off, and Rose so desperately wished she wasn't turned around so she could see the woman's front side, although her shapely rear and lovely back was still an excellent consolation prize, for what it was worth.

"Is there a spell on me you need to undo before night falls?" Rose asked, laughing, although slightly worried that that was, in fact, a thing that was happening. Only slightly! It would be kind of cool, actually.

Porrim chuckled, all smiles, throwing her head back over her shoulder to look at Rose, who was steadily becoming increasingly ambulatory. "No, I just have dinner reservations at 8 and would hate to cancel them."


	7. Chapter 7

It all felt so... Unreal. Like, yes, she was escorted down the elevator, through the ritzy lobby with only slightly less glam and Greco-Romanism than Porrim's penthouse condo (but a much larger fountain), past the security guards, the other custodial staff in the lobby, until she was out in the... Place where cars arrive? She didn't know the term for it, but soon, a small, shiny black car pulled up. Porrim had grabbed a parasol on the way down from an umbrella basket, her favorite colors, jade, black, and gold, and was currently standing under it, presumably to prevent even the slightest stray sunbeam making its way to her fair skin as she walked Rose to the car. She opened the door for Rose, who stepped inside, and bid her adieu.

Rose didn't make much small talk with the driver outside of giving him her address. Instead, in her fancy new clothing, she stared out the window at the passing city, watching as he passed around traffic with expert knowledge of every alleyway and side-street, the kind of knowledge only someone who lived here forever could have. Then, she asked if he could put on the alt-rock channel on the radio, and he politely acquiesced, and then told her that there were drinks under the center seat in the back. She pulled out what seemed to be a god damn mini-fridge cabinet sort of situation and acquired a can of diet cola, which she slowly, thoughtfully sipped as the sun loomed overhead like some sort of fiery colossus, damning her to sudden loneliness.

She rubbed her neck, idly, and the driver made some light joke about her accepting Porrim's employ, and Rose was like, "Yeah, how could you tell?", and he tilted the mirror so she could see his face and tapped at his neck (clear of bandages, unlike Rose's). She chuckled, and said something to the effect of "I guess I did, then.", and continued looking out the window while he adjusted the mirror back into place. Occasionally, their trek took them to the glittering coast of the city, where she watched people with considerably more wealth and free time enjoying the spring air, the lengthening days. Idly, she wondered if Porrim had a private beach. Probably. What didn't she have?

The drive - she remembered how awful it was with a rideshare app ride at 8:00 PM for their first meeting yesterday, how she left an hour and a half early because she wasn't stupid and understood traffic patterns. The way the city changed from the glam, glitzy richer neighborhoods into the more run-down, underfunded neighborhood she lived in. The ride was much smoother, either because Porrim's driver was very smart or because the traffic wasn't as bad, probably a mixture of both, totaling only about 50 minutes.

And here she was, standing in the center of her old life. The driver was waiting, parked somewhere nearby, so she really should get a move on.

That was all the consideration her brain allowed it.

She returned with two packed suitcases rolling along the ground (both graciously provided by the driver, and by extension, Porrim) and the sun beginning to roll down the horizon. She hadn't emptied the place out, but she did take most of what she could carry that she found necessary, her laptop, her writing equipment, her journals, some of her clothes just in case. Her favorite blankets. Her stuffed turtle. She didn't really have much else of note except copies of the magazines she had been published in. How had she spent so much time just awestruck inside her apartment?

"Sorry about the delay." She said, or something of the sorts, as she slowly loaded the trunk of the car. The driver said, no problem, that's what G-d invented Candy Crush for, and Rose had to have a good laugh at that one. He asked if she wanted to burn some time before 8, since it was already 6, and Rose said something like, "That's bullshit, how is it already 6?", and the driver shrugged, and repeated that it was six and the restaurant was only an hour away, and Rose said, "No thanks, but can I wait in your car after we park? I want to be early, but not too early", and the driver said sure, shrugging again, and they were off.

Was Rose dissociating? It felt a little bit like she was dissociating, but it wasn't the bad kind she was prone to when she broke down in college and then at a Wal-Mart and then in front of her editor, back in New York, and then in high school, and maybe a couple of times in middle school when she started developing a panic disorder, and possibly a couple of times beforehand in elementary school, and maybe, just maybe, at some point in kindergarten, but all her memories before the age of 25 were blurred together anyway. Who was to say they were even real?

Rose jumped a little bit when the driver opened up the door, with the clock on her phone that she was staring at displaying 7:30. He asked if Rose was okay, and she shrugged her shoulders, and he asked if she was having second thoughts, he could always find and rip up the contract for her, and Rose said, "That's very sweet of you, but I think I can handle things.", and the driver said that's okay, he was kind of joking because he knew Porrim had other copies. And then he wished her good luck. And she said "Thank you."

The restaurant loomed overhead, and she got out, feeling so prim and pretty and yet at some point she had washed the makeup off her face from the night before (she had left it on an entire day?) and was feeling a little naked without it. Only lipstick, today. Still black, though, because she possessed no other kinds of lipstick, although this color was a bit more matte than the one from the day before. She walked into the lobby, arms reverse folded behind her back, fingers playing with each other, and looked around.

The interior felt smoky without any smoke, the familiar low, dim lights of haute cuisine steakhouse bistro grill gastropub restaurant anniversary dinners dredging back some quiet childhood memory of her mother taking her to Carrabba's for her birthday. She always liked the cake at the end, the one whose name escaped her, the one that was sort of like a brownie with mousse and some kind of whipped cream on top and then chocolate syrup, and she would split it in half with her Mom "Reservation?" broke Rose out of her temporary reverie.

"Oh, yes, Maryam? Should be... for two, I think?" Rose replied to the hostess with a complete lack of confidence.

The hostess nodded with a smile. "Right, we can get you seated early."

And Rose said, "That would be great.", and she followed her through the interior of the restaurant, moving perhaps a little slower than intended to take in everything. A ceiling dressed up in lights to look like a star-speckled sky, fake constellations twinkling in and out of vision, hidden below wooden scaffolding that the actual low orange lights hung off of to paint the restaurant in perpetual hungry evenings. It seemed like everywhere she looked, there was a wine cellar waiting to match her view, fake vines (or were they real?) blooming with scentless flowers tangling themselves around the non-customer furniture. Round tables eating most of the floor plan, hard lacquered surfaces and cushiony seats on tile floor with candles festooning every surface. In the corners, along the walls, booths, curtained off from the outside world. Bustling waiters and waitresses in dark black and maroon, carrying trays of improbable size with improbable skill.

An bar in the dead center of the floor curried most of the less regal looking inhabitants, people still audibly, visibly rich beyond Rose's imagination, but with disheveled ties, unbuttoned top buttons, a shoe or two lying on the floor for comfort. Who would call them out? A boxy bar, too, a perfect square with an improbably tall tower of beverages sitting behind the bartenders while they mixed drinks with expert precision. Was that Elon Musk? Probably. Oh, we're going up, the hostess leading Rose up a set of wooden stairs. She hadn't even bothered to look up and sideways, only straight up above her head, and somehow missed the interstitial second floor indoor balcony overlooking the rest of the restaurant. It was roped off, with red velvet rope and latched with a padlock that the hostess promptly removed.

This was where the really important people went, Rose surmised. Booths with narrow entrances that opened up into teardrop-shaped crevasses, where Rose didn't doubt for a moment cocaine was enjoyed on the regular. Only a couple of tables, each one spaced quite a bit apart from each other, metal bodies, some sort of ceramic top to them, perhaps? Actual lounge chairs, rather than the wood-with-cushions from the floor below. The light was even more dim here, which explained how Rose likely missed it, although each table had its own small array of candles of varying (but complimentary) brightnesses, enough to presumably read a menu by. Rose sat down in one of the chairs, and the hostess smiled, saying "I'll be right back with your menu. Drinks?"

"Shirley Temple, please." Rose replied - her and alcohol did not have a fun history, and she especially wasn't interested in more after last night's fiasco. She sunk into the lush chair, comfort beyond that of merely a "good sleeping couch", and fiddled with her phone quietly while she waited for the clock to tick ever upwards. As the hostess turned to walk away, Rose let out a little "Oh! And a Bloody Mary for Miss Maryam, please?"

The hostess gave an odd little smile and a "Yes, ma'am.", before disappearing past one of the employee doors. Well, situations like this were what G-d gave her Candy Crush for, weren't they? She let a couple minutes vanish away before the clinking of a glass on ceramic reminded her of the present situation, along with the presentation of a parchment menu that appeared to be made out of actual animal skin, although Rose was only half sure that this was true and not an elaborate facsimile.

Distressingly, there was not a single price on the menu.

Oysters, shrimp, fois gras, White Pearl caviar, saffron on everything, fugu fish, Wagyu beef, Matsutake mushrooms, truffles of all varieties, gold leaf, Iberian ham, animal meat she hadn't even _heard_ of, every part of a quail, eggs included, Kobe beef, lobster, beluga caviar, French bluefoot mushrooms, the list went on, and on, and on, making Rose's head spin. She turned the menu upside down so she could only stare at the blank backside idly, taking quiet sips of her fizzy beverage and letting it coat her tongue with maraschino cherry flavor, syrupy-sweet, but with a distinct kick of some sort of foreign fruity flavor she couldn't quite place. This wasn't her Mom's Rose's Grenadine. Or her Mom's Sprite, if she had to guess.

She stiffened up when she saw the hostess returning from below, up the stairs again, but with a much taller, willowier figure in tow. Porrim seemed to ignore the shape of the stairs as she moved, like she was simply gliding up a sold slope, wearing a distinctly more public-appropriate dress than normal, a slinky, black-and-purple-and-red kimono decorated with bursting white-and-lavender flowers all up the side. She drifted almost ruefully towards Rose, her neutral expression breaking out into a subdued but clearly excited grin as she slid into her seat. She noticed the drink sitting, waiting for her, ice cubes slightly melted, and picked it up for a thoughtful sip before even saying hello as the hostess disappeared back behind one of the doors. "Clever." Porrim said, and Rose felt her soul quake a little. Porrim drained the drink, and then set the glass aside.

"Next time, tell them that I'll be getting their most expensive red. Have you thought about what you'd like to order?"

**Author's Note:**

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